Showing posts with label historical film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label historical film. Show all posts
Sunday, June 21, 2026
Friday, April 17, 2026
📘🎥Friday's Film Adaptation🎥📘: The Horse Soldiers by Harold Sinclair
This novel is a fictionalized account of one of the most daring cavalry raids of all time. Set during the American Civil War, it vividly brings to life `Grierson's Raid', - the seventeen-day raid by a Union brigade through the heart of Confederate Mississippi. Conscious of the huge odds against them; exhausted, hungry and with a deepening sense of impending doom hanging over them as the enemy gathered forces on all sides, the Union soldiers rode south. Despite this, however, the raid was a triumph and dealt a staggering blow to the enemy. Harold Sinclair's novel brings vividly to life the human drama of this extraordinary episode and conveys superbly the tragedy of a civil war and a nation tearing itself apart.
A Union cavalry officer leads his men on a vital mission behind Confederate lines.
Release Date: June 12, 1959
Release Time: 120 minutes
Director: John Ford
Cast:
John Wayne as Colonel John Marlowe
William Holden as Major Henry 'Hank' Kendall
Constance Towers as Miss Hannah Hunter of Greenbriar
Althea Gibson as Lukey
Judson Pratt as Sergeant Major Kirby
Ken Curtis as Cpl. Wilkie
Willis Bouchey as Col. Phil Secord
Bing Russell as Dunker
O.Z. Whitehead as Otis 'Hoppy' Hopkins
Hank Worden as Deacon Clump
Chuck Hayward as Union captain
Denver Pyle as Jackie Jo (rebel deserter)
Strother Martin as Virgil (rebel deserter)
Basil Ruysdael as the Reverend (Jefferson Military Academy)
Carleton Young as Col. Jonathan Miles, CSA
William Leslie as Maj. Richard Gray
William Henry as Confederate lieutenant
Walter Reed as Union officer
Anna Lee as Mrs. Buford
William Forrest as Gen. Steve Hurlburt
Ron Hagerthy as Bugler
Russell Simpson as Acting Sheriff Henry Goodbody
Hoot Gibson as Sgt. Brown
Jack Pennick as Sgt. Maj.Mitch Mitchell (uncredited)
Harold Sinclair
Harold Sinclair was born on May 8, 1907 in Chicago, Illinois. When he was about 8 years old he was sent, along with his sister, to stay with an aunt and uncle in Bloomington, Illinois. As a teenager he worked for the Western Union telegraph company. He dropped out of school, moved to Florida and later returned to Chicago and finally back home to Bloomington. He played in Jazz Clubs and followed a Bohemian lifestyle.
While working for a hardware store he wrote his first book, The Journey Home (1936). The book impressed an editor at Doubleday who offered Sinclair a four book contract.
His next three books, The American Years (1938), The Years of Growth (1940) and the Years of Illusion (1941) chronicle the history of the imaginary town of Everton, Illinois, from the 1830s to the 1920s. The history and characters in the trilogy were based on the history of the City of Bloomington.
In 1940 he publish, Westward the Tide, an account of the Illinois campaign of George Rogers Clark during the Revolutionary War.
More books followed; The Port of New Orleans (1942), Music of Dixie (1952), and a book commissioned by the Bloomington newspaper, The Daily Pantagraph telling the history of the newspaper, Daily Pantagraph 1846-1946 (1976). He also published several short stories, articles and book reviews.
The Horse Soldiers (1956) was a fictionalized account of Illinois Colonel Benjamin Grierson’s daring raid through Mississippi during the Civil War. This book became a bestseller and is best known as the inspiration of the John Ford/John Wayne movie The Horses Soldiers (1959).
His final novel, The Cavalryman (1958), was a sequel to Horse Soldiers. It was not well received by critics or readers. The book was optioned for a possible television series. That project did not come to fruition.
Sinclair died on May 24, 1966.
Cast:
John Wayne as Colonel John Marlowe
William Holden as Major Henry 'Hank' Kendall
Constance Towers as Miss Hannah Hunter of Greenbriar
Althea Gibson as Lukey
Judson Pratt as Sergeant Major Kirby
Ken Curtis as Cpl. Wilkie
Willis Bouchey as Col. Phil Secord
Bing Russell as Dunker
O.Z. Whitehead as Otis 'Hoppy' Hopkins
Hank Worden as Deacon Clump
Chuck Hayward as Union captain
Denver Pyle as Jackie Jo (rebel deserter)
Strother Martin as Virgil (rebel deserter)
Basil Ruysdael as the Reverend (Jefferson Military Academy)
Carleton Young as Col. Jonathan Miles, CSA
William Leslie as Maj. Richard Gray
William Henry as Confederate lieutenant
Walter Reed as Union officer
Anna Lee as Mrs. Buford
William Forrest as Gen. Steve Hurlburt
Ron Hagerthy as Bugler
Russell Simpson as Acting Sheriff Henry Goodbody
Hoot Gibson as Sgt. Brown
Jack Pennick as Sgt. Maj.Mitch Mitchell (uncredited)
Harold Sinclair was born on May 8, 1907 in Chicago, Illinois. When he was about 8 years old he was sent, along with his sister, to stay with an aunt and uncle in Bloomington, Illinois. As a teenager he worked for the Western Union telegraph company. He dropped out of school, moved to Florida and later returned to Chicago and finally back home to Bloomington. He played in Jazz Clubs and followed a Bohemian lifestyle.
While working for a hardware store he wrote his first book, The Journey Home (1936). The book impressed an editor at Doubleday who offered Sinclair a four book contract.
His next three books, The American Years (1938), The Years of Growth (1940) and the Years of Illusion (1941) chronicle the history of the imaginary town of Everton, Illinois, from the 1830s to the 1920s. The history and characters in the trilogy were based on the history of the City of Bloomington.
In 1940 he publish, Westward the Tide, an account of the Illinois campaign of George Rogers Clark during the Revolutionary War.
More books followed; The Port of New Orleans (1942), Music of Dixie (1952), and a book commissioned by the Bloomington newspaper, The Daily Pantagraph telling the history of the newspaper, Daily Pantagraph 1846-1946 (1976). He also published several short stories, articles and book reviews.
The Horse Soldiers (1956) was a fictionalized account of Illinois Colonel Benjamin Grierson’s daring raid through Mississippi during the Civil War. This book became a bestseller and is best known as the inspiration of the John Ford/John Wayne movie The Horses Soldiers (1959).
His final novel, The Cavalryman (1958), was a sequel to Horse Soldiers. It was not well received by critics or readers. The book was optioned for a possible television series. That project did not come to fruition.
Sinclair died on May 24, 1966.
👀Your best bet might be your local library👀
Film
Friday, March 13, 2026
🎬🎭📘🎥Friday's Film Adaptation🎥📘🎭🎬: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Look for The Land of Sweet Forever, a posthumous collection of newly discovered short stories and previously published essays and magazine pieces by Harper Lee, coming October 21, 2025.
Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read
Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South—and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred
One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
PART ONE
When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn't have cared less, so long as he could pass and punt.
When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident. I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out.
I said if he wanted to take a broad view of the thing, it really began with Andrew Jackson. If General Jackson hadn't run the Creeks up the creek, Simon Finch would never have paddled up the Alabama, and where would we be if he hadn't? We were far too old to settle an argument with a fist-fight, so we consulted Atticus. Our father said we were both right.
Being Southerners, it was a source of shame to some members of the family that we had no recorded ancestors on either side of the Battle of Hastings. All we had was Simon Finch, a fur-trapping apothecary from Cornwall whose piety was exceeded only by his stinginess. In England, Simon was irritated by the persecution of those who called themselves Methodists at the hands of their more liberal brethren, and as Simon called himself a Methodist, he worked his way across theAtlantic to Philadelphia, thence to Jamaica, thence to Mobile, and up the Saint Stephens. Mindful of John Wesley's strictures on the use of many words in buying and selling, Simon made a pile practicing medicine, but in this pursuit he was unhappy lest he be tempted into doing what he knew was not for the glory of God, as the putting on of gold and costly apparel. So Simon, having forgotten his teacher's dictum on the possession of human chattels, bought three slaves and with their aid established a homestead on the banks of the Alabama River some forty miles above Saint Stephens. He returned to Saint Stephens only once, to find a wife, and with her established a line that ran high to daughters. Simon lived to an impressive age and died rich.
It was customary for the men in the family to remain on Simon's homestead, Finch's Landing, and make their living from cotton. The place was self-sufficient: modest in comparison with the empires around it, the Landing nevertheless produced everything required to sustain life except ice, wheat flour, and articles of clothing, supplied by river-boats from Mobile.
Simon would have regarded with impotent fury the disturbance between the North and the South, as it left his descendants stripped of everything but their land, yet the tradition of living on the land remained unbroken until well into the twentieth century, when my father, Atticus Finch, went to Montgomery to read law, and his younger brother went to Boston to study medicine. Their sister Alexandra was the Finch who remained at the Landing: she married a taciturn man who spent most of his time lying in a hammock by the river wondering if his trot-lines were full.
When my father was admitted to the bar, he returned to Maycomb and began his practice. Maycomb, some twenty miles east of Finch's Landing, was the county seat of Maycomb County. Atticus's office in the courthouse contained little more than a hat rack, a spittoon, a checkerboard and an unsullied Code of Alabama. His first two clients were the last two persons hanged in the Maycomb County jail. Atticus had urged them to accept the state's generosity in allowing them to plead Guilty to second-degree murder and escape with their lives, but they were Haverfords, in Maycomb County a name synonymous with jackass. The Haverfords had dispatched Maycomb's leading blacksmith in a misunderstanding arising from the alleged wrongful detention of a mare, were imprudent enough to do it in the presence of three witnesses, and insisted that the-son-of-a-bitch-had-it-coming-to-him was a good enough defense for anybody. They persisted in pleading Not Guilty to first-degree murder, so there was nothing much Atticus could do for his clients except be present at their departure, an occasion that was probably the beginning of my father's profound distaste for the practice of criminal law.
During his first five years in Maycomb, Atticus practiced economy more than anything; for several years thereafter he invested his earnings in his brother's education. John Hale Finch was ten years younger than my father, and chose to study medicine at a time when cotton was not worth growing; but after getting Uncle Jack started, Atticus derived a reasonable income from the law. He liked Maycomb, he was Maycomb County born and bred; he knew his people, they knew him, and because of Simon Finch's industry, Atticus was related by blood or marriage to nearly every family in the town.
Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.
People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the stores around it, took their time about everything. A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. But it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself.
We lived on the main residential street in town--Atticus, Jem and I, plus Calpurnia our cook. Jem and I found our father satisfactory: he played with us, read to us, and treated us with courteous detachment.
Calpurnia was something else again. She was all angles and bones; she was nearsighted; she squinted; her hand was wide as a bed slat and twice as hard. She was always ordering me out of the kitchen, asking me why I couldn't behave as well as Jem when she knew he was older, and calling me home when I wasn't ready to come. Our battles were epic and one-sided. Calpurnia always won, mainly because Atticus always took her side. She had been with us ever since Jem was born, and I had felt her tyrannical presence as long as I could remember.
Our mother died when I was two, so I never felt her absence. She was a Graham from Montgomery; Atticus met her when he was first elected to the state legislature. He was middle-aged then, she was fifteen years his junior. Jem was the product of their first year of marriage; four years later I was born, and two years later our mother died from a sudden heart attack. They said it ran in her family. I did not miss her, but I think Jem did. He remembered her clearly, and sometimes in the middle of a game he would sigh at length, then go off and play by himself behind the car-house. When he was like that, I knew better than to bother him.
When I was almost six and Jem was nearly ten, our summertime boundaries (within calling distance of Calpurnia) were Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose's house two doors to the north of us, and the Radley Place three doors to the south. We were never tempted to break them. The Radley Place was inhabited by an unknown entity the mere description of whom was enough to make us behave for days on end; Mrs. Dubose was plain hell.
That was the summer Dill came to us.
Early one morning as we were beginning our day's play in the back yard, Jem and I heard something next door in Miss Rachel Haverford's collard patch. We went to the wire fence to see if there was a puppy--Miss Rachel's rat terrier was expecting--instead we found someone sitting looking at us. Sitting down, he wasn't much higher than the collards. We stared at him until he spoke:
"Hey."
"Hey yourself," said Jem pleasantly.
"I'm Charles Baker Harris," he said. "I can read."
"So what?" I said.
"I just thought you'd like to know I can read. You got anything needs readin' I can do it. . . ."
"How old are you," asked Jem, "four-and-a-half?"
"Goin' on seven."
"Shoot no wonder, then," said Jem, jerking his thumb at me. "Scout yonder's been readin' ever since she was born, and she ain't even started to school yet. You look right puny for goin' on seven."
"I'm little but I'm old," he said.
Jem brushed his hair back to get a better look. "Why don't you come over, Charles Baker Harris?" he said. "Lord, what a name."
"'s not any funnier'n yours. Aunt Rachel says your name's Jeremy Atticus Finch."
Jem scowled. "I'm big enough to fit mine," he said. "Your name's longer'n you are. Bet it's a foot longer."
"Folks call me Dill," said Dill, struggling under the fence.
Release Date: December 25, 1962
Release Time: 129 minutes
Director: Robert Mulligan
Cast:
Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch
Mary Badham as Jean Louise "Scout" Finch
Phillip Alford as Jeremy "Jem" Finch
John Megna as Charles Baker "Dill" Harris
Frank Overton as Sheriff Heck Tate
Rosemary Murphy as Miss Maudie Atkinson
Ruth White as Mrs. Dubose
Brock Peters as Tom Robinson
Estelle Evans as Calpurnia
Paul Fix as Judge John Taylor
Collin Wilcox as Mayella Violet Ewell
James Anderson as Robert E. Lee "Bob" Ewell
Alice Ghostley as Miss Stephanie Crawford
Robert Duvall as Arthur "Boo" Radley
William Windom as Horace Gilmer, District Attorney
Crahan Denton as Walter Cunningham
Richard Hale as Nathan Radley
Awards:
35th Academy Awards - April 8, 1963
Best Picture - Alan J. Pakula - Nominated
Best Director - Robert Mulligan - Nominated
Best Actor - Gregory Peck - Won
Best Supporting Actress - Mary Badham - Nominated
Best Adapted Screenplay - Horton Foote - Won
Best Art Direction - Alexander Golitzen, Henry Bumstead and Oliver Emert - Won
Best Cinematography - Russell Harlan - Nominated
Best Original Score - Elmer Bernstein - Nominated
17th BAFTAs - 1964
Best Film from any Source - Nominated
Best Foreign Actor - Gregory Peck - Nominated
20th Golden Globes - March 5, 1963
Best Motion Picture – Drama - Nominated
Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama - Gregory Peck - Won
Best Director – Motion Picture - Robert Mulligan - Nominated
Best Original Score – Motion Picture - Elmer Bernstein - Won
Best Film Promoting International Understanding - Won
AFIs 100 Years . . .
100 Movies - #34
100 Heroes & Villains -- Atticus Finch - #1 Hero
Film Scores - #17
100 Cheers - #2
100 Movies: 10th Anniversary Edition - #25
10 Top 10 - #1 Courtroom Drama
Harper Lee was born in 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama. She attended Huntingdon College and studied law at the University of Alabama. She is the author of the acclaimed To Kill a Mockingbird, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and numerous other literary awards and honours. She died on 19 February 2016.
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Film
Monday, December 1, 2025
🦃📘🎥Friday's Film Adaptation🎥📘🦃: An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving by Louisa May Alcott
"You will see what I can do. Ma said I was to use my judgment about things, and I'm going to. All you children have got to do is to keep out of the way, and let Prue and me work. Eph, I wish you'd put a fire in the best room, so the little ones can play in there. We shall want the settin-room for the table, and I won't have them pickin' round when we get things fixed," commanded Tilly, bound to make her short reign a brilliant one.
Sixty years ago, up among the New Hampshire hills, lived Farmer Bassett, with a house full of sturdy sons and daughters growing up about him. They were poor in money, but rich in land and love, for the wide acres of wood, corn, and pasture land fed, warmed, and clothed the flock, while mutual patience, affection, and courage made the old farm-house a very happy home.
November had come; the crops were in, and barn, buttery, and bin were overflowing with the harvest that rewarded the summer's hard work. The big kitchen was a jolly place just now, for in the great fireplace roared a cheerful fire; on the walls hung garlands of dried apples, onions, and corn; up aloft from the beams shone crook-necked squashes, juicy hams, and dried venison—for in those days deer still haunted the deep forests, and hunters flourished. Savory smells were in the air; on the crane hung steaming kettles, and down among the red embers copper sauce-pans simmered, all suggestive of some approaching feast.
A white-headed baby lay in the old blue cradle that had rocked seven other babies, now and then lifting his head to look out, like a round, full moon, then subsided to kick and crow contentedly, and suck the rosy apple he had no teeth to bite. Two small boys sat on the wooden settle shelling corn for popping, and picking out the biggest nuts from the goodly store their own hands had gathered in October. Four young girls stood at the long dresser, busily chopping meat, pounding spice, and slicing apples; and the tongues of Tilly, Prue, Roxy, and Rhody went as fast as their hands. Farmer Bassett, and Eph, the oldest boy, were "chorin' 'round" outside, for Thanksgiving was at hand, and all must be in order for that time-honored day.
To and fro, from table to hearth, bustled buxom Mrs. Bassett, flushed and floury, but busy and blithe as the queen bee of this busy little hive should be.
"I do like to begin seasonable and have things to my mind. Thanksgivin' dinners can't be drove, and it does take a sight of victuals to fill all these hungry stomicks," said the good woman, as she gave a vigorous stir to the great kettle of cider apple-sauce, and cast a glance of housewifely pride at the fine array of pies set forth on the buttery shelves.
"Only one more day and then it will be time to eat. I didn't take but one bowl of hasty pudding this morning, so I shall have plenty of room when the nice things come," confided Seth to Sol, as he cracked a large hazel-nut as easily as a squirrel.
"No need of my starvin' beforehand. I always have room enough, and I'd like to have Thanksgiving every day," answered Solomon, gloating like a young ogre over the little pig that lay near by, ready for roasting.
"Sakes alive, I don't, boys! It's a marcy it don't come but once a year. I should be worn to a thread-paper with all this extra work atop of my winter weavin' and spinnin'," laughed their mother, as she plunged her plump arms into the long bread-trough and began to knead the dough as if a famine was at hand.
Tilly, the oldest girl, a red-cheeked, black-eyed lass of fourteen, was grinding briskly at the mortar, for spices were costly, and not a grain must be wasted. Prue kept time with the chopper, and the twins sliced away at the apples till their little brown arms ached, for all knew how to work, and did so now with a will.
"I think it's real fun to have Thanksgiving at home. I'm sorry Gran'ma is sick, so we can't go there as usual, but I like to mess 'round here, don't you, girls?" asked Tilly, pausing to take a sniff at the spicy pestle.
"It will be kind of lonesome with only our own folks." "I like to see all the cousins and aunts, and have games, and sing," cried the twins, who were regular little romps, and could run, swim, coast and shout as well as their brothers.
"I don't care a mite for all that. It will be so nice to eat dinner together, warm and comfortable at home," said quiet Prue, who loved her own cozy nooks like a cat.
"Come, girls, fly 'round and get your chores done, so we can clear away for dinner jest as soon as I clap my bread into the oven," called Mrs. Bassett presently, as she rounded off the last loaf of brown bread which was to feed the hungry mouths that seldom tasted any other.
"Here's a man comin' up the hill, lively!" "Guess it's Gad Hopkins. Pa told him to bring a dezzen oranges, if they warn't too high!" shouted Sol and Seth, running to the door, while the girls smacked their lips at the thought of this rare treat, and Baby threw his apple overboard, as if getting ready for a new cargo.
But all were doomed to disappointment, for it was not Gad, with the much-desired fruit. It was a stranger, who threw himself off his horse and hurried up to Mr. Bassett in the yard, with some brief message that made the farmer drop his ax and look so sober that his wife guessed at once some bad news had come; and crying, "Mother's wuss! I know she is!" out ran the good woman, forgetful of the flour on her arms and the oven waiting for its most important batch.
The man said old Mr. Chadwick, down to Keene, stopped him as he passed, and told him to tell Mrs. Bassett her mother was failin' fast, and she'd better come to-day. He knew no more, and having delivered his errand he rode away, saying it looked like snow and he must be jogging, or he wouldn't get home till night.
"We must go right off, Eldad. Hitch up, and I'll be ready in less'n no time," said Mrs. Bassett, wasting not a minute in tears and lamentations, but pulling off her apron as she went in, with her mind in a sad jumble of bread, anxiety, turkey, sorrow, haste, and cider apple-sauce.
A few words told the story, and the children left their work to help her get ready, mingling their grief for "Gran'ma" with regrets for the lost dinner.
"I'm dreadful sorry, dears, but it can't be helped. I couldn't cook nor eat no way, now, and if that blessed woman gets better sudden, as she has before, we'll have cause for thanksgivin', and I'll give you a dinner you won't forget in a hurry," said Mrs. Bassett, as she tied on her brown silk pumpkin-hood, with a sob for the good old mother who had made it for her.
Release Date: November 22, 2008
Release Time: 90 minutes
Director: Graeme Campbell
Cast:
Jacqueline Bisset as Isabella
Helene Joy as Mary Bassett
Tatiana Maslany as Mathilda "Tilly" Bassett
Kristopher Turner as Gad Hopkins
Gage Munroe as Solomon Bassett
Ted Atherton as Mr. Hopkins
Paula Boudreau as Mrs. Hopkins
Vivien Endicott-Douglas as Prudence
Louisa May Alcott was both an abolitionist and a feminist. She is best known for Little Women (1868), a semi-autobiographical account of her childhood years with her sisters in Concord, Massachusetts. Alcott, unlike Jo, never married: "... because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man." She was an advocate of women's suffrage and was the first woman to register to vote in Concord, Massachusetts.
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